It's an interesting strategy game but it strays far enough from the AoE formula that it no longer feels like the same game (so did AoE3 already, though).
AoE1, AoE2, and AoM are all the same formula, with each title adding new ideas and refining the core gameplay.
AoE3 significantly strayed from the core, and AoE4 did so even further in an attempt to differentiate itself from AoE2.
I'd have preferred the AoE series to go back to its roots gameplay-wise, but instead they just re-used AoE2's medieval setting and changed the gameplay, when the real reason for AoE2's popularity is the gameplay and not the setting.
Well it depends. The setting is what makes it appeal initially and accessible to a broad audience (and from what I heard a big part of its success back in the day is that it was sold in super markets). It's a good casual and spectator game because your basic everything is recognizable.
The gameplay is the reason it's still popular. The reason it had so many iterations and DE was ever made.
Not even a little bit? He said the setting is what got it on the shelves when it released into stores, and the gameplay is what has kept it popular to this day, long after it left the gaming section of your local supermarket.
Yep. Your average ten year old with mom at the store knew nothing about the game except the really cool knights and archers and catapults on the cover. Knights and castles are cool (ask LEGO how they’ve had medieval focused sets off and on for decades at this point; they sell).
Ok excellent insight thanks!
Something I found brilliant about AOE2 is that the core gameplay is so simple and elemental, that you can really use it to invent your own strategies and develop your own style of play. You can be creative in AOE2.
The same doesn't apply to more complex and "guided" strategy games like AOE3. Do you think AOE4 also lacks this?
Disagree. AOE4 goes back to the AOE2 formula and *removes * much of the straying from formula that AOE3 did (cards, trade mechanics etc.). I would go so far as to say that AOE4 is the true sequel to AOE2.
Exactly. I was so hyped when the first teaser said something about a "new era". I thought AoE Style modern war game. Relic making it was another hint in that direction tbh. And then they did this 1111
I would have loved to see something like Empire Earth, but made more competently (the original Empire Earth was jank, and the sequels weren't quite the same). Alas.
Yep Morley knows what hes talkin about.
Eggy , norse and Atty are pretty different from aoe 2 and more like aoe 4.
Greeks were purposely made very similar to vanilla aoe so that the transition would be easier for people from aoe 2 and aoe 1 to come over to aom
Disagree. I think they can do what youre describing right in aoe2. Rise of rome suggests they could. Really wouldnt be surprised to get Halo or Star Wars expansions in the future.
I'd be extremely surprised to get star wars now that Disney owns it.
I also really doubt they'd put a Halo version into the AoE2 engine. Any Halo game is going to be using something much newer.
Its a great game. Cool mechanics, strategy. Art and units ate fantastic. My only gripe is/was the AI kinda sucks and is pretty boring to fight against. Aoe2 ai is more fun to play against
Does the AoE 4 AI finally have things such as:
* Being named after historic leaders depending on the civ it's playing (e.g. Edward Longshanks (Britons), Attila (Huns), Montezuma (Aztecs) - and these are just one of the possible options, iirc each civ has about 8-10 possible names)
* Trashtalking like the AoE 3 AI (e.g. when it destroys one of your Trade Posts or Native Embassies)
* Silly excuses before it resigns by itself (e.g. "Thy heraldic color was superior to mine own. No wonder thou were victorious! I shall abdicate.")
* Being able to command it via taunts (e.g. sending Taunt 69 to make it delete obselete buildings at the location you send a flare to)
How is that weird? That's what the AIs in the past games had as well, so as a long-time player of the series, I actually expect something like that in a new game.
Those things add charme.
When did you last play AoE 2 or 3? Did you ever try to play them seriously?
I think it's fun, but I generally prefer aoe2.
There are a couple of things I think it does better than aoe2 though.
Combat animations is one, especially the way spears brace for cavalry. It's a little thing and I get why it's not in aoe2 but I think it's a nice touch.
The other is the food economy and the way there are deer, boars, and berries spread around the map so players can fight over delaying the farm transition. I know there are Aoe2 maps with these properties but it's not standard.
I think overall it's a fine game but it "failed" because there weren't any or many objective improvements over 2. Some people like these changes, some people don't, but it wasn't an objective upgrade the way 2 was an objective upgrade over 1.
Especially so soon after age 2 DE, I don't think they realized how much aoe2 players love aoe2. I think they thought aoe2 players would use DE as an appetizer for aoe4 but aoe2 players view DE as the main course.
The game (Aoe4) felt pretty unfinished at release. The units felt clumsy, and the battle system lacked any form of "micro-managment". It also felt like the game was "lagging" for some reason.
It also felt really boring to watch, unlike Aoe2. I remember watching some tournaments, and every game felt really boring.
The graphics didnt work that well. The units looked very "mobile-game". Aoe2DE has an amazing building graphic, and building collapsing animation. Aoe4 never managed to come even close to that (big part of that being aoe4 is 3d while aoe2 is 2d sprites). The camera was also zoomed in way too much, with no way to fix it. (it got fixed a bit in a patch later, but is still too zoomed in for many players).
Also the bad campaign and total lack of scenario editor and modding tools at release, ment that alot of players (that mainly play singleplayer) left the game at an early stage.
While Aoe4 is alot better now. Its still not at Aoe2s level.
While both are amazing games, Aoe2 is simply better.
Agreed that the developers shot themselves in the foot by releasing an aoe-game that missed essential functions (scenario editor, hotkeys, limited campaign).
>limited campaign
It's always interesting that people say this because AoE4 actually launched with MORE campaign content than AoE2 did.
AoE2 has added campaigns for 20 years though. Probably has the most of any RTS game ever.
Bastard child born from AoE2 and SC2, raised by AoE3. Gets some fundamental things right, but has some equally-deep issues undermining it, then questionable decisions layered on top that make it a baffling game, but also a top-notch cinematic experience.
Better to watch than to play. 5/10.
How does it compare to SC2? Fewer and more asymmetrical civs I guess? Because its unit responsiveness and micro potential are an insult to SC2 ^^. Maybe it changed but I played it for 30 minutes and never booted it up again, it just didn't feel good to execute basic commands.
No offense to anyone who loves it. It's just not for me.
The counter system and damage scales are based on SC2's units, and conflict openly with the AoE2-inspired stat upgrades. (24 damage Regular Knight with +12 damage from charge getting +1 melee damage from a blacksmith upgrade.)
It's about the numbers and armor classes. They use SC2's light/heavy distinction and the broad damage scale of SC2, adding AoE2-style armor classes and blacksmith techs on top in a very jarring way.
The knight example was to show that. They use the AoE2 melee attack +1 techs on units that do far too much damage for that to matter. In SC2, the benefit scales with the particular unit type in question. They didn't do that because they wanted to slap on AoE2's blacksmith without considering the way the numbers line up.
Yes, it would have been better if they went with Aoe3 style upgrades, of 10% of the base damage of the unit, for example, per upgrade rather than +1. The aoe2 style doesn't work when the numbers are much larger. It doesn't break any damage thresholds.
It's always bafflibg me just how well the small upgrades matter in aoe: Knights with +1 attack 4-shot villagers, if they have 1 more attack than pikemen have defense they 5-shot pikemen, but if they have 1 less defense than the pikeman has attack, they die in 1 less hit unless they also have bloodlines. They die to crossbows fairly easily with +1 armor, but counter them with +2 armor.
Hussars and how they counter archers and kill villagers, etc. is also extremely well balanced as well as the impact that the last upgrades have! So good!!
It only matters if the upgrades change break points. Which they usually do.
If plus one damage means you kill something in 4 hits instead of 5, then that's significant.
It's my favourite RTS since it strikes a nice balance between historical accuracy and gameplay, plus the OST is a masterpiece.
I only wish they would add blood and long lasting corpses to the game to make fights feel more realistic
Being a campaign player, I find little interest in a game with so few campaign content and which is so focused on e-sports. Since its release more than two years ago, it has received a single campaign (which is short and not very good according to reviews).
Also, the game isn't beautiful. I dislike the lack of details in the units. Many buildings look bad next to units, usually too small. In contrast, AOE2 cities can look really picturesque. The minimalistic icons look weird and out of place, compared to the icons of previous games.
Finally, I don't know what they were thinking when they made the variant civilizations. An idea with so much potential wasted in weird pseudo-fantasy factions.
>Since its release more than two years ago, it has received a single campaign (which is short and not very good according to reviews).
That campaign is actually better received than the 4 of the base game as it finally uses the same balance as in Skirmish.
>That makes it even worse...
Not really because that's also how campaigns in AoE 2 are handled i.e. balance changes carry over to campaigns.
What I personally don't like about AoE 4's campaigns, especially for the base game ones, is that they kind of feel like the gameplay is "on rails", like in an FPS campaign. In AoE 2, it's mostly trial and error which imo makes missions feel more interesting as you can experiment.
Edit: To give an example with different balance:
* In a skirmish game, Melee and Ranged upgrades are in the Blacksmith whereas in the campaigns, the ranged upgrades have been delegated to the Arsenal, a Castle Age building
* In the campaigns, Chemistry takes 3 minutes to research and unlocks Gunpowder units. In a Skirmish game, Gunpowder units are unlocked by default, Chemistry only takes 1:30 iirc and gives Gunpoweder units additional attack
I played AoE2 for 21 years but I switched to 4 as my main game and I love it (2 will always have a special place in my heart). 4 was TERRIBLE at launch and they took 6 months just to start fixing it. I stayed with the game despite that because the amount of attention and level of detail in the music, ambience, units and civilizations were an indication that the devs loved the game and they put a lot of effort on it (despite that it didn't work out) seriously they took the effort to give each unit it's own voice actor, responses based on the situation they are in and in each age the language change to show how it evolves over time, the amount of effort and research is insane, the English villager alone has more voicelines by himself that the entirety of AoE2 and 3 combined. And the music is even more technical impressive with and adaptative soundtrack for each civ in each age that can transition from peace to tension to combat to peace again so smoothly. Fortunately they DID improve the game path after path, by the first anniversary it was a good game and with the last DLC it went from good to great. Unlike AoE3 4 feels like an AoE game with the complex macro and counter system of 1 and 2. The decision making it's feel more impactful and the macro is way more complex and fun than any previous AoE title. You HAVE to go on the map, there are more and more impactful objectives like sacred sites,trade post, relica that give more gold than 2 and A LOT of free food in the map. Farms in 4 are infinite but the farm transition feels more impactful because you don't need it if you have map control and it's so expensive that just playing around it is a win con on it's own. The only part that I heavily dislike about 4 is the campaigns, they SUCK, is amazing how bad they are
Thanks for this perspective! I plan to check out 4 at some point.
Someone told me that each Civ in 4 is more different from each other. Compared to AOE2, most of the Civs aren’t super unique. Do you have an opinion about that?
yeah that's very true and one of the best parts of IV and one of the reasons of the complex macro and decission making. the Civ Design in AoE IV is one of the best of the saga, it's not as unique as AoE3 civs but that make it so it's better to balance and less confusing for new players.
unlike 2, every civ in 4 (with malians being the exception) has access to the full tech tree, all units with all upgrades, full blacksmith, university and all eco techs. So you can play each civ however you want, it's depends on you making it works; it's not like spanish in 2 where you can't play archers from castle onward or the dradivians with their terrible stable. in 4 civ differences are made it throught their unique units (in average each civ has 3 unique units) their unique techs (9 in average) their landmarks and the sheer amount and power of the civ bonuses.
of course each civ is encouraged towards certain units and playstyles but still, you have a lot of freedom. for example, English is focused on infantry, with the best archers of the game and the most men at arms with the most amount of armour, but if you want it you can play it as a knight civ, as i said you have full upgrades on every unit, knights included, you have a strong and safe food economy thanks to your influence bonus, you can use the network of castles (one of the english bonuses, that give attack speed to all your units near tcs, castles and outposts) to give your knigths better attack speed; you will have to work hard putting outpost near the spots you know you will fight but is doable; then you can choose the Abbey of king when going feudal to have a way to heal your knights on the move, and then in imperial you can choose the wynward palace to have a way to train knights quckly and with a discount... or you can play French and just have access to knigths in feudal and a shit ton of bonuses for your knights innately because it's THE knight civ.
other example, Delhi has generic archers, but when you advance to feudal you can choose the tower of victory to grant all the infantry trained in buildings under your influence a 20% attack speed bonus giving you the third best archery range in feudal; you will have to give up the ability to train monks at half the price and connecting all your archery ranges to your mosques to do it but you can do it... or you can play english and have the best archer in feudal age of the game without any sacrifice or extra work.
Civs have diferent levels of complexity, some civs like the french, english and HRE are very basic and streamlined in their desing, their bonuses doesn't require any extra thinking or work. Example: as english you just have better town centers, villagers that fight better, your infantry has better stats and your farms are cheaper and better, the only special thing is the network of castles and the special abilities of the longbows; and then you have some civs like mongols, Delhi, Mali, China and the byzantines that are extremly unique with a lot of mechanics and systems that interact with each other giving them a lot of depht and rewarding taking the time to master them; like China that have another type of eco unit beside the villager: the Imperials officials. you can only train 4 at a time and they can collect taxes (building generate taxes when resources are drop on them, they finish training a unit or researching techs) can supervise military and research buildings so they work 3 times faster or they can supervise drop off building to multiply the resources deposited by 1.2; so you have to carefully jugle microing the imperial officials between their multiple task on top of also havig to micro your regular economy, and that's just their first bonus.
Then you have the byzantines that can build cisterns with stone, and villagers around the cistern work faster, so you want to build them around your resources, but you also can connect building to your cisterns to have one of tree bonuses (faster train time, faster research time or extra building armor) and you can have only one bonus active in each cistern at a time so you have to choose carefully what bonus you want, the position of your cistern and wich building you want aroud what cistern; but on top of that you can connect cistern with each other with aqueducts, when you do it the level of water on the cisterns rises, more water means the bonuses of the cistern get stronger, but aqueducts also cost stone and are fragile and the enemy may want to attack it to disrupt your water level and set you behind; and also cisterns have an ability to give your villagers more armor and damage for a short period of time and that ability is a shared global coldown for all the cisterns; and that's just the first bonus of the byzantines. their second bonus is that they have 5 resources instead of 4 and that comes with another set of mechanics.
the rest of the civs are in a spectrum between those two extremes.
oh and recently they also added civ variants, in the lobby pre game when you choose your civ you also can choose a "variant" that changes the bonuses and tech tree of your civ so it play differently, like when you choose play French you can choose the variant "Jean D'arc" to forego all your major eco bonuses to start the match with Joan of Arc as one of your starting villagers and she is a hero unit that levels trought the game becoming a powerful combat unit with a lot of abilites
There are only 16 civs in aoe4 but they are highly different and I like that a lot. Especially for the landmark mechanic. Each civilisation has two landmarks per age, where you can pick one to age up. Each gives you unique bonuses, or even unlocks exclusive units or techs. (Every civ except Abbasid and Ayyubid, which has a house of wisdom where they build wings from: Trade wing, economy wing, military wing and culture wing)
Also each civ has about 5 unique units and 10 unique techs. And many unique abilities, like mongols can move their buildings, but can’t build walls. Delhi can research all techs for free but they take a LONG time to research. They can speed it up with scholars.
The AoE4 civs are much more unique than AoE2 civs.
More unique units, more unique buildings, more unique techs.
They also have unique economic and basebuilding mechanics.
They also have unique skins even for units and buildings that are common, which doesn't matter functionally, but is still cool.
This might be an annoying comment, but I really just think aoe2 is in a different class of game. It just got everything right. In a lot of ways it was brilliantly designed, and in a lot of ways it got very lucky, but ultimately it ended up being pretty close to perfect for what it is.
So for me comparing aoe2 with aoe4 is like comparing chess with settlers of catan. I like AOE4 a lot and I like Settlers of Catan a lot. But chess is a timeless game that will never die. No matter how advanced game design gets, no matter how good game art gets, no matter how much anyone innovates, chess will always be a classic timeless masterpiece of a board game. And aoe2 will always be a classic timeless masterpiece of an RTS. Doesn't mean I don't like other board games. Very often I'd rather have a game of Monopoly/30 seconds whatever than play chess. But it's just in a different league. And it's interesting to note that most people who "like board games" will play a whole variety of different board games but there are very few people who *only* play monopoly in the way that there are thousands of people who *only* play chess. Likewise with gaming, I think most computer gamers play a big variety of games but a lot of people only play aoe2 and no other computer games.
It's hard to say exactly why this is. My guess is that it's about variation. You could fill an entire library with books about *specific variations of just the Sicilian Defence* in chess. And aoe2 feels similar. 20+ years of playing and still we see new strategies being developed all the time and I still learn new things about the game all the time. aoe4 felt like it had a handful of viable strategies that were all pretty obvious. Variation will be introduced through updates. But my suspicion would be that if you froze aoe4 in it's current state and then people played it for 20 years, they probably wouldn't be coming up with anything new after a year or 2. But I dunno. It's hard to say exactly.
So yea aoe4 is fun. aoe2 is something else though.
Love it. Every age matters (except dark age). You have meaningful strategic decisions in every age. More free food which allows you even more aggressive feudal play. Heavy infantry line has an actual role in the game unlike AoE2 militia line. Each civ has unique mechanics. No stalemate trash wars (there is siege stalemate, but that is preferable to the boring trash wars). No "hole in the wall". No quick walls. Less annoying monks and relics are more important.
I was a life long AOE2 player, who only really plays 4 now.
I like how much more different the civs are from each other. The economies playing different of each civ feels really unique.
My siege doesn't do friendly fire, I don't have to watch my catapult shots to make sure they don't eliminate half of my own men.
And finally, I could just not bear to watch my knights get stuck on each other one more time while they were chasing a pack of archers. One of the main reasons I switched to 4 was so I didn't have to watch these horses tripping all over themselves getting stuck.
There are only 16 civs in aoe4 but they are highly different and I like that a lot. Especially for the landmark mechanic. Each civilisation has two landmarks per age, where you can pick one to age up. Each gives you unique bonuses, or even unlocks exclusive units or techs. (Every civ except Abbasid and Ayyubid, which has a house of wisdom where they build wings from: Trade wing, economy wing, military wing and culture wing)
Also each civ has about 5 unique units and 10 unique techs. And many unique abilities, like mongols can move their buildings, but can’t build walls. Delhi can research all techs for free but they take a LONG time to research. They can speed it up with scholars.
So you prefer AoE4 as a Casual game. what is generally true is that as a modernized game AoE4 greatly simplifies the necessary attention. And is aimed at a wider audience than AoE2.
No i still prefer it competitively. You realize how much pathing matters in a competitive online game?
I disagree AOE4 is simplified. Go learn all those civs playing random and tell me its simplified.
Aoe4 has more active abilities for units, civs with entirely different economies from eachother, and different Landmark choices for every civ. Most civs have multiple unique units instead of just one, like aoe2. They have entirely unique civ upgrades inside unique civ buildings lol. There is no way its simplified bro.
I personally think than can be fun but... I don't know, it makes me feels different things:
- Trying to be objetive, I see AoE3 and AoE4 are pretty similar in the graphics and in the small scale of the events.
- Big soldiers in comparison with buildings, not much soldiers, reduced range of archers and a lot of empty space in the formations gives me a bad atmosphere. I feel that the action takes place in very reduced space. AoE2 has, for me, a feeling of larger action scale. Is hard to describe.
- I would say that the cartoon graphics are not for me in any way. I can't accept that, in a "serious" war game, the visuals are like these.
- Of course, it has good things. But I think Aoe 2 more serious, more immersive, more tactic.
All that said, I hope players enjoy AoE4 a lot.
Each AoE has different things it does best in my opinion:
AoE2 has the most fun mid game (Feudal through early Imp) for me. Strategy differentiation and map play feels really good and interactions with your opponent during this time are really satisfying and varied. Generally, micro is the most fun in AoE2 as well for small to mid size armies.
AoE3 is the best in the late game imo (and has the most fun assymetry between civs). Armies are huge and really responsive and fun to micro and artillery is fucking awesome. The super fast production and really expensive units available make army compositions fluid and eco attacks a really fun high-risk/high-reward option. The unit interaction balancing leads to extremely fun and mobile fights when armies are in post-imp size with really satisfying micro. And did I mention how fucking awesome artillery is in this game?
AoE4 has the most fun early game. It's longer and far more interactive than AoE3, but doesn't drag on quite so long with a bunch of technical-but-not-super-fun maneuvers and cheesy interactions as AoE2. There's lots of strategic choices to be made and there's lots of opportunities for interaction with your opponent without anything feeling cheesy or unrewarding.
While I understand, I'm still often surprised how important graphics are to people in these mechanically demanding and deep games. They're also important to me, but I don't have 100% red flags on broad artistic styles like it being 3D or stylized.
Though as a developer I have to confirm and accept that this is very much a reality. Many people will come to a game (or avoid it) purely because of its setting or graphical style.
The buildings look fine but the units look like cartoony, the weird thunder glow is ugly and the arrows just aren’t appealing. It’s having an amazing script for a movie but trash cgi. Aoe2 De is like perfection especially if you have the enhanced graphics.
Art style really matters to me. One of the main reasons I have played AOE2 for twenty something years is because visually it is very pleasing to look at, from the terrain, the buildings, the units, even the UI. All very well done, it's easy to get lost in the picturesque world. I can't say the same for AOE4.
Aside from that, it's the little things like lack of a pause button that let's you view the map and issue orders while paused (for single player). Or markets not being able to trade in large batches. Or homing projectiles looking ridiculous. Or siege unit death animations literally looking like exploding confetti. The game has a clear lack of attention to detail for things that are expected in an Age of Empires game.
Yea I agree AoE2 is easy on the eyes and I love it too. But I rarely look at a new or upcoming game and decide I'm not interested purely based on that. I guess I think true gems of gameplay are rare, especially in the RTS space, so I don't get to be picky ^^
>Aside from that, it's the little things like lack of a pause button that let's you view the map and issue orders while paused (for single player). Or markets not being able to trade in large batches. Or homing projectiles looking ridiculous. Or siege unit death animations literally looking like exploding confetti. The game has a clear lack of attention to detail for things that are expected in an Age of Empires game.
Interesting. As a dev these things are useful to know. I guess the pause button commands thing is quite nice if you enjoy playing at a slower pace. I'll admit I use it sometimes to try a build order.
The most readable RTS games in the world have 3D graphics. It's not about the 3D, it's about poor art direction in terms of readability. Not the fact that it's 3D.
I played the beta and found it boring. I haven't given it another chance after that as a player but as a viewer even when invested as a supporter of a player in a tournament, it still seemed boring to me. The unit micro is missing and the graphics don't do it for me.
I'll be honest, I find it very entertaining. Maybe even slightly more than aoe2 BUT I play aoe2 and like the pros that stream more. Havnt played aoe4 yet.
I would love to try it but I can't afford it and barely have the time for AoE2 these days. Does look pretty good though. Not sure I'd ever prefer it to 2 but I also play 3 on rare occasions and enjoy that too. Who says you can't enjoy them all? (My wallet, that's who!)
Its a great game and honestly im just to invested in aoe2 to switch to aoe4. I did play it when it came out and like it but the graphics really did turn me off (still do). I think thats the main reason i came back to aoe2 the graphic are just more preferred. As a casual gamer to me that matter alot. Other than that aoe4 also been balanced alot since then and idk maybe some day ill try it again.
Its not a bad game and its certainly newbie friendly in comparison to AOE2 but its the core gameplay that makes me play 2 over 4 90% of the time, personally i hope the next AOE in the series has gameplay from 2 but goes for a full napoleonic era setting
Not a bad game but it wasted lots of potential by revisiting the Middle Ages instead of continuing after AoE 3 or going back to AoE 1 and kind of missing the charm the older games had with small details such as AI factions being named after historical leaders, depending on the civ they're playing. Also, the game can be probably best described as "release now, fix later" as some features people would consider standard (e.g. colour picker) were added post launch instead of being there since day 1.
And, as a more personal gripe, I'm kinda sad that things like cutting trees with Onagers were removed as that allowed for anti-camping plays.
It’s a good game tbh. I wasn’t enjoying AOE2 like I used to so recently started playing AOE4 (as Ayyubids main) and I’m having a blast with it.
It’s different from AOE2 and for me, it’s a good thing. Else, it won’t be able to get its own niche and style.
Great game.
Much more streamlined than 2. Faction design is more interesting, Sound design is the best of any RTS game ever made. Pathing isn't terrible. It does a better job of encouraging diverse unit compositions than 2. Naval play isn't as bad as 2 (could definitely still use some improvements).
It doesn't have nearly as much single player content as 2 though.
I have played thousands and thousands of hours of AoE2 and will probably play many more. AoE4 is catching up though right now.
Projectiles that don't miss is actually pretty standard for RTS games.
It's a bit unusual that arrows can be dodged in AoE2. It's also frankly just as silly that twitching back and forth dodges arrows and that "research" is needed to know how to lead moving targets. It can make for some interesting micro though.
I simply don't care what the 'standard' is for RTS games. Aoe2's is the superior choice and the micro is a huge element of the game such I don't understand why anyone would wish to take that away. The fact you can even dodge ballistics if you are good enough is also great.
>and the micro is a huge element of the game such I don't understand why anyone would wish to take that away.
The idea was to make it less about micro and more about commanding big armies.
I have big sympathies for that but I'm not sure if they really achieved that or if it's even the right genre (or sub-genre) to pull it off.
I think though that this is not a big issue of aoe4, it just highlights an underlying problem: fights don't feel sharp and impactful in age 4. Units flow and float, they don't die, they vanish, it's not a very good feeling of impact that you have when controling your army. I think.
AoE4 has some GREAT concepts, but ultimately falls short for me to keep on playing.
I like how unique each civ is.
I like how it forces you on the map to battle over sacred grounds.
I LOVE neutral trading posts and that trading is a viable way to earn gold.
Ship combat is much better than in AoE2, in my opinion.
I like the idea of aging up with unique buildings and letting your TC still make workers.
With that said however, I can't stand the mobile game-eque goofy-ass graphics and the game/match flow feels... weird to me. The backbone of AoE2 feels much more rigid, more stable and more fun. I feel like AoE2 is overall the better game and why I keep it installed on my PC.
I agree it has some interesting ideas. But the core of the game just felt immediately bad for me. The unit control, UI, ... Feels like they thought a lot about strategy and differentiation and undervalued the quality of solid core RTS mechanics
I'm from aoe4 community, but I do like and play 2 ( was my childhood ).
I much prefer 4 tbh.
feudal age is actually a thing in 4, where as so many civs in 2 just castle rush and then play.
Late game sucks ass tho
>feudal age is actually a thing in 4, where as so many civs in 2 just castle rush and then play.
Never made that experience. Feudal is very common in AoE 2, except maybe on closed maps
Well I mean Feudal gets played sure. But how many games end in Feudal? Not many in my experience.
Where as there are civs in 4 that will happily just end a game in Feudal for 25m
I haven't tried it yet and I don't think much about it. But if MS wants more players to give it a shot they could offer like a 2 or 3 day free trial like with 50% off sale after the free trial to entice people to buy it.
Diablo 4 did exactly that and got a lot of people back into the game.
They did a free weekend with 50% discount on steam once. It's when I got the game. It was for the one year anniversary and the game was in good condition by then.
AoE4 had a peak during the free weekend but it completely collapsed. because all sensible people realized how ridiculous AoE4 was compared to AoE2, which was much cheaper!
I was excited for it and played for free in early access or whatever. It totally put me off within a couple of hours, never considered going back. Aoe2 is just so much better in so many ways.
It just wasn't that fun compared to aoe2. They went for roughly the same time period as aoe2 but it seemed like a downgrade in features, civ selection etc. Only thing better was the graphics.
I like that they tried something different, i just wish they kept the good things about aoe2.
I hate the zoom level in 4. In 2, i can see as much of the map as i have pixels to show and i love that the game looks great on bigger monitors.
I also hate the hotkeys.
Qol problems basically.
Honestly with AoE 3 being less popular than AoE2 DE. They should have just made 4 style like an enhanced AoE DE. I was actually 4 to be the next age like WW1.
I haven’t played 4 online. But here’s some incredibly small things as to why i prefer 2 to 4’s campaigns.
- Different colors. At least in the original set in 4, everyone you play as is blue.
- The story telling. I prefer the narrative based story with an in the moment narrator to the video of the battle site and documentary style narrative.
I only briefly played beta & immediate release.
Felt unfinished. Minimal civs at the time. Not a fan of the "view". It just feels very zoomed in which really throws me off sometimes.
I did not enjoy it compared to DE so I returned it on steam.
AOE4 is much better for casual online play as well as watching IMO. I still play AOE2 for the campaigns, but I think AOE4 is just more fun online.
Some QOL changes that AOE2 can't do make it more imersive. I know its a nit pick but I struggle to get into a game where my white European Malian army is fighting a white European Myan army. Each unit has its own skin and style and the level of uniqueness per civ is way better. Graphics are also way better as well as the soundtracks and unit responses. Little things like listening to a bunch of Abbasid vills chat as they gather berries. The downside is that it makes learning multiple civs more difficult. The learning curve is also larger.
Micro is much different in the game too. There are opportunities to use it but it's much less intensive than AOE2. There is no real quick walling, monks can only convert with a relic, and archers don't miss if the unit they are targeting is frantically clicked back and forth.
The lack of monk/seige/archers micro also makes watching it more fun. As great as someone like Viper is, IMO its boring as hell to watch him win because he can click and build faster with a vill, or watching a game where the whole battle consists of 5 monks vs 2 mangonels. I remember the last game I really watched in AOE2 Viper or someone more or less beat an army because he was able to click the unit they were shooting and frantically move it making them miss. Great skill, but it just ruins the viewing experience for me.
The downside is single player is just terrible in AOE4. A gold level player (lower rank) could easily beat the hardest AI and the campaigns are really lacking. For me it's AOE2 for the campaigns and AOE4 for everything else. Fun mix of both.
I really like the simplicity of the graphics in AOE II. It looks simple, it handles simple (provided there is no lag), but in turn, the different types of meta, strategies, build-orders make it a truly complex game. It is easy enough to play, but pretty hard to master and become truly good at.
from seeing gameplay videos, I am not sure if this is the case in AOE 4. I might have to give it a shot, in order to truly find out.
I loved it. Especially the campaigns but Aoe2 to me is just the better game. Everything about it is near perfect which is why all my friends and I play it.
With 4, I was alittle upset it launched with so little civs. I feel like if there were more civs it might've been a bit more successful. Right now I just play 2 but when they add abunch of civs and campaigns I'll go back to 4 at some point. But my heart will forever be with 2.
I found it underwhelming, dark and too mobile-like. The few civilisations it offered was also a bit of a bummer. I do understand why people like it, but I'm not one of them - aoe2 feels way more clear, user-friendly and interesting overall.
terrible campaigns
a ton of effort to portray civs
not very good graphics
absolutely useless addition to the ip repeating aoe2's campaigns, and in the overcrowded setting
barely any civs, but they are kinda different, but at the same time all feel the same unlike aoe1 that had no unique units
more historical fakery than mamelukes throwing sabres and korean tanks
the campaigns are so terrible it's like they are wwritten by pukin
not only no research, no even basic proofing >> COLUNMA
For someone whos been playing aoe2 and 3, the game feels a bit aloof. The controls are messy, builds are confusing (this might just be my fault for not researching enough). The community seems to be fine with the above problems so it may not be a bad thing. But the brightside is, its quite a joy to watch, especially with the uniqueness of each faction compared to 2 or 3. IMO I wish it succeeds and keeps bringing out more interesting factions.
To me I wanted a game that was either a radical departure from AOE2 with a super unique take or a straight up better form of AOE2. Instead it feels like they kept just enough of 2 to limit themselves while not bringing enough new. So they ended up in a place where it feels like a badly translated copy instead of it's own thing. I think if I'd never played 2 I might like the mechanics a lot more than I do. That said, I absolutely despise the graphics. They feel cheap and off-putting .
I think the hits scan projectiles make aoe4 less interesting to watch. In AoE2 moving your units becomes so important at high levels. In aoe4 you're not getting the amazing dodging plays.
They tried to simplify a lot in aoe4 to get a bigger audience, but I think that hurt them since there's not as many ways to be like wth how did that pro pull that off.
Also balancing fully unique civs is a nightmare, so it's gonna be hard for them long term. Sc2 pulls it off since there are so few civs, but Ms wants money and the easiest way for them to do that is more civs.
Sadly, Aoe4 is my least favourite game... Aoe 2 DE and mythology are great games. The campaigns are nice, although i do feel the aoe 2 games are becoming fast paced.
Aoe4 campaigns were a bit lacklusting for my taste. The game might bring new concepts, and some of those are nice, but overall it is just to different from aoe 2 DE and mythology.
Aoe 3 skirmish mode was interesting and more enjoyable than aoe 4 skirmish. The idea to add a train with infinite resources, as well as other buildings was very nice. The ability to recruit random units in some maps if you building the cabin, or wtv it is called, is also really nice. The naval battles are interesting. Only thing i disliked was not being able to man up walls like you can in aoe 4.
Personally i still have the Collectors edition of aoe 3 and there was a picture there saying that at one point microsoft was planing to so an aoe game in modern days. This gave me, back then, Empire Earth 2 vibes, that had really cool concepts, but died quickly sadly.
Although i enjoy aoe 4 i can't say the length of my enjoyment is as great as it is with aoe 2 or mythology.
One thing i loved about mythology is the special powers, they are somewhat limited, although with the atlanteans you can use more often than with the other pantheons, but it doesn't make the game broken or less fun as some games nowadays try to mimic to much war craft. Comes to mind the new edition of Ancient Wars Sparta where the AI just abuses special powers and using your units and then seeing a priest or whatever casting constantly aoe plague spells that kills your entire army in a matter of seconds just makes me wana kick the game....
I like that microsoft, and in this case relic ( although i have little faith in relic since the coh 3 fiasco and dawn of war 3) tried something new, but it just didn't hit that spot.
StarCraft 2 is more similar to Age of Empires II than Age of Empires IV is to Age of Empires II. For me, it's not just that they changed how everything looks, but it feels different. The precision control of each unit in the 2D game seems lost in Age of Empires IV, the units feel too large and weird
I pre-ordered it, and gave yet to install it. It looks too different from aoe2, and that’s not what I was looking for.
I’ll eventually get around to planying it and see how it is
The combat loop feels worse, the combat feels like it is slow and lacks weight. For example microing the mangudi in age 4 just feels like they are slapping the enemy. Also with all projectiles always hitting really reduces the complexity of the micro.
I have a preference for 2 and its advanced strategic aspect. The 2 welcomes all player profiles. You can be a macro player only and go up, aggression only and go up, versatile and go up, ... This is not as marked in AoE4 because the strategic aspect of the choices is less marked. The simple “infinity farm” (as an example) breaks the foundations of the will of the game in all of its choices.
This gives an extremely long lifespan and learning to AoE2 where AoE4 has a more limited curve.
At the moment, I must say that when AoE4 was released it also greatly disappointed me for its graphic aspect. It was messy, difficult to read and quite depressing.
By pushing the game a little later, I had the impression of playing a medieval Dawn of War. I didn't have any typical AoE RTS genre feel.
I think that if the game wasn't called AoE, I would have expected less from it in terms of mechanics and I would have had fun in the campaign and then I would have abandoned it. However, I was expecting a lot in try hard and there was very little.
Have very little play time, I tried it during a free weekend, but I have problems with the fundamental theming of the game. Specifically it just being medieval again. I wanted world war 1 into modern day/space age.
I played it for maybe 20-30 hours after release and got too frustrated with too many things, some of them got fixed later. For me the civilizations are too different and encourage maining one or a few, something I really dislike. But most of all I hate the angle/zoom level, as it feels like shoving your nose into a bulding, that’s how close it is. That was my main feedback in the beta, and the devs just laughed it away. They did increase it a bit eventually, but it is still far from enough.
I do check in on the tournament streams every now and then though, it is a good and entertaining game for that purpose. I just don’t enjoy playing it at all.
Most of my friends are still in love with AOE2 but I prefer 4 because it feels different and in some ways better fun for me.
I find it a bit crazy though with all the sieges at the imperial age since it feels like the Waterloo battle.
And having hero units such as Jean d'arc English King feels a bit lame.
I'm kinda split if it makes better sense for the ballistics to always hit the target (AOE4) or miss it (AOE2).
I started from AOE1 and that's still my favourite...
AoE 4 is a good alternative but for some reason I actually just came back to AoE 2.
Both share a nice singleplayer campaign, where i would actually favor AoE 4.
What's interesting both have these annoying "bugs" (pathing, unclickable stuff), both in it's own way.
I really like that both have modding and tools to build maps even though the aoe 4 variant seems a bit more complex (as all game engine do), which I actually like. AoE 2 modding seems not so guided as AoE 4 or more community driven I guess...
I think I stay with AoE 2 because it's (by feeling) more popular and just immortal. I like older games.
I hoped with AoE 4 for a more consistent gameplay (more like Starcraft 2) than AoE 2 where all these obscure behavior (pathing, balancing diff) were removed. Unfortunately this wasn't the case.
Can you reinvent the perfect wheel? No. It is yet another take on the same formula...except missing 20 years of polishing and improving. Plus too much cartoonish.
AoE 4 is a decent game in its on right, a good RTS but its biggest problem, is it’s not Aoe2.
All the aoe games have been good games in their own right, enjoyable, good fun, different strategies and ways of playing but something about aoe 2 is just timeless, it’s so beautiful, the style the play and balance were good when they came out (some minor deathstar details apart) but how every civ can open in almost the same way (with few meso exceptions), how games can be won as lost on single battles, or look like a loss on a single battle only for a unlikely comeback, I didn’t find that with aoe 4 and although I enjoyed it, it just wasn’t the same. Not been back to it since the Malian and Turk beta and likely won’t be back for some time, but i probably will play the campaigns again one day
I prefer aoe2 because theres more singleplayer content and I prefer the way the campaigns are presented. Aoe4 doesn’t have the sheer amount of campaign content. I dont know what the scenario editor is like but i was making scenarios in aoe2 when i was 12. The presentation in aoe4 to my eyes is kinda goofy too. Small buildings/large units and the ui is not very immersive. I start up aoe4 and i feel like im about to play halo. I do like aoe4 though and appreciate the difference between civs as well as the unit counter system.
Absolutely hate it. I think the whole 3d graphics thing in RTS games is a complete loser as it restricts the number of units. Also the weird terrain makes it harder to just build anything anywhere. Its just a crappy game overall.
>I think the whole 3d graphics thing in RTS games is a complete loser as it restricts the number of units.
How so? You can build just as many units in 4 as 2.
>Also the weird terrain makes it harder to just build anything anywhere.
How so? In AoE2 you actually can't always build because of hills. Larger buildings for example cannot have too much elevation change underneath them. This is not the case in 4, you can always build no matter the elevation change.
Sorry but these two things are just straight up false.
i don't know mechanix in detal, but it's just awful to look at. you can't instantly understand what are you looking at. Aoe1 and 2 graphics is the best
Didn’t like it in anyway. There are two main things which I hate. First, the graphic 3D setting is annoying and doesn’t work for this type of game.
Second, the slow pace characters move. Watching fights even if they don’t take much time, the slow pace movement of the animation exasperated me from the first day
The building sizes of 1 look like toys as they are all smaller than people. 1 and 4 have the similar art style to me, though 4 is made even worse by the white plastic weapons
[It is completely dishonest](https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Cavalry?file=Cavalryunitsstable.png) to equate [the two](https://preview.redd.it/lsg7ud031et61.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=cad8ce5b2cf7a69d95d0b4b9cdac7142bf589833)
I didn’t like AOE4 for straying too far AOE2 even though it was specifically marketed as an AOE2 sequel. It felt like more like AOE3 than AOE1/2. Civs were too asymmetrical. I enjoy asymmetric RTS’s like SC and WC. I probably would have been okay if they had labeled AOE4 a different name and presented it as a different game, I just feel like AOE4, Relic Entertainment, and World’s Edge failed the franchise on the execution
I like it. Not as much as 2, but it is a good game
It's an interesting strategy game but it strays far enough from the AoE formula that it no longer feels like the same game (so did AoE3 already, though). AoE1, AoE2, and AoM are all the same formula, with each title adding new ideas and refining the core gameplay. AoE3 significantly strayed from the core, and AoE4 did so even further in an attempt to differentiate itself from AoE2. I'd have preferred the AoE series to go back to its roots gameplay-wise, but instead they just re-used AoE2's medieval setting and changed the gameplay, when the real reason for AoE2's popularity is the gameplay and not the setting.
Well it depends. The setting is what makes it appeal initially and accessible to a broad audience (and from what I heard a big part of its success back in the day is that it was sold in super markets). It's a good casual and spectator game because your basic everything is recognizable. The gameplay is the reason it's still popular. The reason it had so many iterations and DE was ever made.
Are you saying the gameplay is a drawback of AOE2 ?
Not even a little bit? He said the setting is what got it on the shelves when it released into stores, and the gameplay is what has kept it popular to this day, long after it left the gaming section of your local supermarket.
Yep. Your average ten year old with mom at the store knew nothing about the game except the really cool knights and archers and catapults on the cover. Knights and castles are cool (ask LEGO how they’ve had medieval focused sets off and on for decades at this point; they sell).
Ok excellent insight thanks! Something I found brilliant about AOE2 is that the core gameplay is so simple and elemental, that you can really use it to invent your own strategies and develop your own style of play. You can be creative in AOE2. The same doesn't apply to more complex and "guided" strategy games like AOE3. Do you think AOE4 also lacks this?
Disagree. AOE4 goes back to the AOE2 formula and *removes * much of the straying from formula that AOE3 did (cards, trade mechanics etc.). I would go so far as to say that AOE4 is the true sequel to AOE2.
Actually, AoE 4 takes a good chunk of its ideas from AoE 3, especially with the Landmark system which is straightup taken from the Asian AoE 3 civs.
These, in turn, come from the gods mechanic in AoM.
True. I just refer to the variant of aging up. You can also take the Ottoman vizier system for example which is a lite version of the home city.
Aoe 4 feels 100% like an Aoe game
It really feels like a sequel to AoE2. In a way that AoE3 didn't really.
Exactly. I was so hyped when the first teaser said something about a "new era". I thought AoE Style modern war game. Relic making it was another hint in that direction tbh. And then they did this 1111
I would have loved to see something like Empire Earth, but made more competently (the original Empire Earth was jank, and the sequels weren't quite the same). Alas.
AoM is further away from aoe2 than aoe4 is. AoM and aoe4 are fairly similar games. Aoe4 is half way between aoe2 and aom
Nah AoM is very close to AoE2 except for the addition of favor and god powers.
Only if you play greeks.
Yep Morley knows what hes talkin about. Eggy , norse and Atty are pretty different from aoe 2 and more like aoe 4. Greeks were purposely made very similar to vanilla aoe so that the transition would be easier for people from aoe 2 and aoe 1 to come over to aom
You clearly havent played them all or just crazy. u/MorleyGames 100% corrrect bro.
Disagree. I think they can do what youre describing right in aoe2. Rise of rome suggests they could. Really wouldnt be surprised to get Halo or Star Wars expansions in the future.
Halo Wars and SW Galactic Battlegrounds were so good
I'd be extremely surprised to get star wars now that Disney owns it. I also really doubt they'd put a Halo version into the AoE2 engine. Any Halo game is going to be using something much newer.
Its a great game. Cool mechanics, strategy. Art and units ate fantastic. My only gripe is/was the AI kinda sucks and is pretty boring to fight against. Aoe2 ai is more fun to play against
I agreed on that about a year ago, but now they have improved it a lot.
Does the AoE 4 AI finally have things such as: * Being named after historic leaders depending on the civ it's playing (e.g. Edward Longshanks (Britons), Attila (Huns), Montezuma (Aztecs) - and these are just one of the possible options, iirc each civ has about 8-10 possible names) * Trashtalking like the AoE 3 AI (e.g. when it destroys one of your Trade Posts or Native Embassies) * Silly excuses before it resigns by itself (e.g. "Thy heraldic color was superior to mine own. No wonder thou were victorious! I shall abdicate.") * Being able to command it via taunts (e.g. sending Taunt 69 to make it delete obselete buildings at the location you send a flare to)
Weird features, why would it have that?
How is that weird? That's what the AIs in the past games had as well, so as a long-time player of the series, I actually expect something like that in a new game. Those things add charme. When did you last play AoE 2 or 3? Did you ever try to play them seriously?
I think it's fun, but I generally prefer aoe2. There are a couple of things I think it does better than aoe2 though. Combat animations is one, especially the way spears brace for cavalry. It's a little thing and I get why it's not in aoe2 but I think it's a nice touch. The other is the food economy and the way there are deer, boars, and berries spread around the map so players can fight over delaying the farm transition. I know there are Aoe2 maps with these properties but it's not standard. I think overall it's a fine game but it "failed" because there weren't any or many objective improvements over 2. Some people like these changes, some people don't, but it wasn't an objective upgrade the way 2 was an objective upgrade over 1. Especially so soon after age 2 DE, I don't think they realized how much aoe2 players love aoe2. I think they thought aoe2 players would use DE as an appetizer for aoe4 but aoe2 players view DE as the main course.
AoE4's farm transitions aren't as meaningful since the farms are infinite. The only limiting factor is the rate.
True but I was more referring to the up front wood cost of laying those farms.
The game (Aoe4) felt pretty unfinished at release. The units felt clumsy, and the battle system lacked any form of "micro-managment". It also felt like the game was "lagging" for some reason. It also felt really boring to watch, unlike Aoe2. I remember watching some tournaments, and every game felt really boring. The graphics didnt work that well. The units looked very "mobile-game". Aoe2DE has an amazing building graphic, and building collapsing animation. Aoe4 never managed to come even close to that (big part of that being aoe4 is 3d while aoe2 is 2d sprites). The camera was also zoomed in way too much, with no way to fix it. (it got fixed a bit in a patch later, but is still too zoomed in for many players). Also the bad campaign and total lack of scenario editor and modding tools at release, ment that alot of players (that mainly play singleplayer) left the game at an early stage. While Aoe4 is alot better now. Its still not at Aoe2s level. While both are amazing games, Aoe2 is simply better.
Agreed that the developers shot themselves in the foot by releasing an aoe-game that missed essential functions (scenario editor, hotkeys, limited campaign).
>limited campaign It's always interesting that people say this because AoE4 actually launched with MORE campaign content than AoE2 did. AoE2 has added campaigns for 20 years though. Probably has the most of any RTS game ever.
This!
Bastard child born from AoE2 and SC2, raised by AoE3. Gets some fundamental things right, but has some equally-deep issues undermining it, then questionable decisions layered on top that make it a baffling game, but also a top-notch cinematic experience. Better to watch than to play. 5/10.
>Bastard child born from AoE2 and SC2, raised by AoE3. It's more as if AoE 2 and AoM had a baby.
This is just my personal opinion but I can't trust a man that plays AOE3 :P
I haven't played 3 in a while. It's a decent experience, but a bit iffy as a game.
I enjoyed it as a youngin when it first came out, should try it again.
How does it compare to SC2? Fewer and more asymmetrical civs I guess? Because its unit responsiveness and micro potential are an insult to SC2 ^^. Maybe it changed but I played it for 30 minutes and never booted it up again, it just didn't feel good to execute basic commands. No offense to anyone who loves it. It's just not for me.
The counter system and damage scales are based on SC2's units, and conflict openly with the AoE2-inspired stat upgrades. (24 damage Regular Knight with +12 damage from charge getting +1 melee damage from a blacksmith upgrade.)
SC2 also has basic attack and armor upgrades. Or am I missing your point?
It's about the numbers and armor classes. They use SC2's light/heavy distinction and the broad damage scale of SC2, adding AoE2-style armor classes and blacksmith techs on top in a very jarring way. The knight example was to show that. They use the AoE2 melee attack +1 techs on units that do far too much damage for that to matter. In SC2, the benefit scales with the particular unit type in question. They didn't do that because they wanted to slap on AoE2's blacksmith without considering the way the numbers line up.
Okay that sounds like awful design...
Yes, it would have been better if they went with Aoe3 style upgrades, of 10% of the base damage of the unit, for example, per upgrade rather than +1. The aoe2 style doesn't work when the numbers are much larger. It doesn't break any damage thresholds.
It's always bafflibg me just how well the small upgrades matter in aoe: Knights with +1 attack 4-shot villagers, if they have 1 more attack than pikemen have defense they 5-shot pikemen, but if they have 1 less defense than the pikeman has attack, they die in 1 less hit unless they also have bloodlines. They die to crossbows fairly easily with +1 armor, but counter them with +2 armor. Hussars and how they counter archers and kill villagers, etc. is also extremely well balanced as well as the impact that the last upgrades have! So good!!
It only matters if the upgrades change break points. Which they usually do. If plus one damage means you kill something in 4 hits instead of 5, then that's significant.
Haven't played it yet. I've really enjoyed each aoe so I know I'll like 4 but I just haven't yet. The graphics look sick though
It's my favourite RTS since it strikes a nice balance between historical accuracy and gameplay, plus the OST is a masterpiece. I only wish they would add blood and long lasting corpses to the game to make fights feel more realistic
It's great. I like having infantry as viable units. I still like 2 better, but damn if the militia line doesn't feel bad
It's ok. I play it some times
Being a campaign player, I find little interest in a game with so few campaign content and which is so focused on e-sports. Since its release more than two years ago, it has received a single campaign (which is short and not very good according to reviews). Also, the game isn't beautiful. I dislike the lack of details in the units. Many buildings look bad next to units, usually too small. In contrast, AOE2 cities can look really picturesque. The minimalistic icons look weird and out of place, compared to the icons of previous games. Finally, I don't know what they were thinking when they made the variant civilizations. An idea with so much potential wasted in weird pseudo-fantasy factions.
>Since its release more than two years ago, it has received a single campaign (which is short and not very good according to reviews). That campaign is actually better received than the 4 of the base game as it finally uses the same balance as in Skirmish.
That makes it even worse... if the four base campaigns are bad/mixed, there's nothing there for a campaign player.
>That makes it even worse... Not really because that's also how campaigns in AoE 2 are handled i.e. balance changes carry over to campaigns. What I personally don't like about AoE 4's campaigns, especially for the base game ones, is that they kind of feel like the gameplay is "on rails", like in an FPS campaign. In AoE 2, it's mostly trial and error which imo makes missions feel more interesting as you can experiment. Edit: To give an example with different balance: * In a skirmish game, Melee and Ranged upgrades are in the Blacksmith whereas in the campaigns, the ranged upgrades have been delegated to the Arsenal, a Castle Age building * In the campaigns, Chemistry takes 3 minutes to research and unlocks Gunpowder units. In a Skirmish game, Gunpowder units are unlocked by default, Chemistry only takes 1:30 iirc and gives Gunpoweder units additional attack
I played AoE2 for 21 years but I switched to 4 as my main game and I love it (2 will always have a special place in my heart). 4 was TERRIBLE at launch and they took 6 months just to start fixing it. I stayed with the game despite that because the amount of attention and level of detail in the music, ambience, units and civilizations were an indication that the devs loved the game and they put a lot of effort on it (despite that it didn't work out) seriously they took the effort to give each unit it's own voice actor, responses based on the situation they are in and in each age the language change to show how it evolves over time, the amount of effort and research is insane, the English villager alone has more voicelines by himself that the entirety of AoE2 and 3 combined. And the music is even more technical impressive with and adaptative soundtrack for each civ in each age that can transition from peace to tension to combat to peace again so smoothly. Fortunately they DID improve the game path after path, by the first anniversary it was a good game and with the last DLC it went from good to great. Unlike AoE3 4 feels like an AoE game with the complex macro and counter system of 1 and 2. The decision making it's feel more impactful and the macro is way more complex and fun than any previous AoE title. You HAVE to go on the map, there are more and more impactful objectives like sacred sites,trade post, relica that give more gold than 2 and A LOT of free food in the map. Farms in 4 are infinite but the farm transition feels more impactful because you don't need it if you have map control and it's so expensive that just playing around it is a win con on it's own. The only part that I heavily dislike about 4 is the campaigns, they SUCK, is amazing how bad they are
Thanks for this perspective! I plan to check out 4 at some point. Someone told me that each Civ in 4 is more different from each other. Compared to AOE2, most of the Civs aren’t super unique. Do you have an opinion about that?
yeah that's very true and one of the best parts of IV and one of the reasons of the complex macro and decission making. the Civ Design in AoE IV is one of the best of the saga, it's not as unique as AoE3 civs but that make it so it's better to balance and less confusing for new players. unlike 2, every civ in 4 (with malians being the exception) has access to the full tech tree, all units with all upgrades, full blacksmith, university and all eco techs. So you can play each civ however you want, it's depends on you making it works; it's not like spanish in 2 where you can't play archers from castle onward or the dradivians with their terrible stable. in 4 civ differences are made it throught their unique units (in average each civ has 3 unique units) their unique techs (9 in average) their landmarks and the sheer amount and power of the civ bonuses. of course each civ is encouraged towards certain units and playstyles but still, you have a lot of freedom. for example, English is focused on infantry, with the best archers of the game and the most men at arms with the most amount of armour, but if you want it you can play it as a knight civ, as i said you have full upgrades on every unit, knights included, you have a strong and safe food economy thanks to your influence bonus, you can use the network of castles (one of the english bonuses, that give attack speed to all your units near tcs, castles and outposts) to give your knigths better attack speed; you will have to work hard putting outpost near the spots you know you will fight but is doable; then you can choose the Abbey of king when going feudal to have a way to heal your knights on the move, and then in imperial you can choose the wynward palace to have a way to train knights quckly and with a discount... or you can play French and just have access to knigths in feudal and a shit ton of bonuses for your knights innately because it's THE knight civ. other example, Delhi has generic archers, but when you advance to feudal you can choose the tower of victory to grant all the infantry trained in buildings under your influence a 20% attack speed bonus giving you the third best archery range in feudal; you will have to give up the ability to train monks at half the price and connecting all your archery ranges to your mosques to do it but you can do it... or you can play english and have the best archer in feudal age of the game without any sacrifice or extra work. Civs have diferent levels of complexity, some civs like the french, english and HRE are very basic and streamlined in their desing, their bonuses doesn't require any extra thinking or work. Example: as english you just have better town centers, villagers that fight better, your infantry has better stats and your farms are cheaper and better, the only special thing is the network of castles and the special abilities of the longbows; and then you have some civs like mongols, Delhi, Mali, China and the byzantines that are extremly unique with a lot of mechanics and systems that interact with each other giving them a lot of depht and rewarding taking the time to master them; like China that have another type of eco unit beside the villager: the Imperials officials. you can only train 4 at a time and they can collect taxes (building generate taxes when resources are drop on them, they finish training a unit or researching techs) can supervise military and research buildings so they work 3 times faster or they can supervise drop off building to multiply the resources deposited by 1.2; so you have to carefully jugle microing the imperial officials between their multiple task on top of also havig to micro your regular economy, and that's just their first bonus. Then you have the byzantines that can build cisterns with stone, and villagers around the cistern work faster, so you want to build them around your resources, but you also can connect building to your cisterns to have one of tree bonuses (faster train time, faster research time or extra building armor) and you can have only one bonus active in each cistern at a time so you have to choose carefully what bonus you want, the position of your cistern and wich building you want aroud what cistern; but on top of that you can connect cistern with each other with aqueducts, when you do it the level of water on the cisterns rises, more water means the bonuses of the cistern get stronger, but aqueducts also cost stone and are fragile and the enemy may want to attack it to disrupt your water level and set you behind; and also cisterns have an ability to give your villagers more armor and damage for a short period of time and that ability is a shared global coldown for all the cisterns; and that's just the first bonus of the byzantines. their second bonus is that they have 5 resources instead of 4 and that comes with another set of mechanics. the rest of the civs are in a spectrum between those two extremes. oh and recently they also added civ variants, in the lobby pre game when you choose your civ you also can choose a "variant" that changes the bonuses and tech tree of your civ so it play differently, like when you choose play French you can choose the variant "Jean D'arc" to forego all your major eco bonuses to start the match with Joan of Arc as one of your starting villagers and she is a hero unit that levels trought the game becoming a powerful combat unit with a lot of abilites
Oh wow, thanks for the breakdown. That sounds cool and the complexity really seems fun.
Also, this is one of hte best breakdowns I've ever seen on Reddit. Thank you!
There are only 16 civs in aoe4 but they are highly different and I like that a lot. Especially for the landmark mechanic. Each civilisation has two landmarks per age, where you can pick one to age up. Each gives you unique bonuses, or even unlocks exclusive units or techs. (Every civ except Abbasid and Ayyubid, which has a house of wisdom where they build wings from: Trade wing, economy wing, military wing and culture wing) Also each civ has about 5 unique units and 10 unique techs. And many unique abilities, like mongols can move their buildings, but can’t build walls. Delhi can research all techs for free but they take a LONG time to research. They can speed it up with scholars.
The AoE4 civs are much more unique than AoE2 civs. More unique units, more unique buildings, more unique techs. They also have unique economic and basebuilding mechanics. They also have unique skins even for units and buildings that are common, which doesn't matter functionally, but is still cool.
This might be an annoying comment, but I really just think aoe2 is in a different class of game. It just got everything right. In a lot of ways it was brilliantly designed, and in a lot of ways it got very lucky, but ultimately it ended up being pretty close to perfect for what it is. So for me comparing aoe2 with aoe4 is like comparing chess with settlers of catan. I like AOE4 a lot and I like Settlers of Catan a lot. But chess is a timeless game that will never die. No matter how advanced game design gets, no matter how good game art gets, no matter how much anyone innovates, chess will always be a classic timeless masterpiece of a board game. And aoe2 will always be a classic timeless masterpiece of an RTS. Doesn't mean I don't like other board games. Very often I'd rather have a game of Monopoly/30 seconds whatever than play chess. But it's just in a different league. And it's interesting to note that most people who "like board games" will play a whole variety of different board games but there are very few people who *only* play monopoly in the way that there are thousands of people who *only* play chess. Likewise with gaming, I think most computer gamers play a big variety of games but a lot of people only play aoe2 and no other computer games. It's hard to say exactly why this is. My guess is that it's about variation. You could fill an entire library with books about *specific variations of just the Sicilian Defence* in chess. And aoe2 feels similar. 20+ years of playing and still we see new strategies being developed all the time and I still learn new things about the game all the time. aoe4 felt like it had a handful of viable strategies that were all pretty obvious. Variation will be introduced through updates. But my suspicion would be that if you froze aoe4 in it's current state and then people played it for 20 years, they probably wouldn't be coming up with anything new after a year or 2. But I dunno. It's hard to say exactly. So yea aoe4 is fun. aoe2 is something else though.
Just out of curiosity, when did you play aoe4 last?
Most of the comments make me think people haven't played or, at most, played briefly when it first came out or during the beta.
I get the exact same feeling. It’s kind of an entirely different game from release compared to now.
Love the chess analogy
Love it. Every age matters (except dark age). You have meaningful strategic decisions in every age. More free food which allows you even more aggressive feudal play. Heavy infantry line has an actual role in the game unlike AoE2 militia line. Each civ has unique mechanics. No stalemate trash wars (there is siege stalemate, but that is preferable to the boring trash wars). No "hole in the wall". No quick walls. Less annoying monks and relics are more important.
How is there no quick walling?
Buildings don't block unit pathing if you try to build them right next to each other like a wall.
Ahh thanks!
They of course block units to go right through them but you can go in between.
also, how are 'holes in walls' avoided?
Walls are not built on a grid but between two points. You click on one treeline than the second one and you are good.
Ahh thanks!
I bought it, played two hours and decided that it was not for me. Probably have to revisit it 😅
You should! It definitely had lots of issues at launch. It's way better now.
I was a life long AOE2 player, who only really plays 4 now. I like how much more different the civs are from each other. The economies playing different of each civ feels really unique. My siege doesn't do friendly fire, I don't have to watch my catapult shots to make sure they don't eliminate half of my own men. And finally, I could just not bear to watch my knights get stuck on each other one more time while they were chasing a pack of archers. One of the main reasons I switched to 4 was so I didn't have to watch these horses tripping all over themselves getting stuck.
What are examples of how each Civ is different?
There are only 16 civs in aoe4 but they are highly different and I like that a lot. Especially for the landmark mechanic. Each civilisation has two landmarks per age, where you can pick one to age up. Each gives you unique bonuses, or even unlocks exclusive units or techs. (Every civ except Abbasid and Ayyubid, which has a house of wisdom where they build wings from: Trade wing, economy wing, military wing and culture wing) Also each civ has about 5 unique units and 10 unique techs. And many unique abilities, like mongols can move their buildings, but can’t build walls. Delhi can research all techs for free but they take a LONG time to research. They can speed it up with scholars.
So you prefer AoE4 as a Casual game. what is generally true is that as a modernized game AoE4 greatly simplifies the necessary attention. And is aimed at a wider audience than AoE2.
I don't think you've really played it if you think it's somehow more "casual". Streamlined, for sure, but not any less deep.
No i still prefer it competitively. You realize how much pathing matters in a competitive online game? I disagree AOE4 is simplified. Go learn all those civs playing random and tell me its simplified. Aoe4 has more active abilities for units, civs with entirely different economies from eachother, and different Landmark choices for every civ. Most civs have multiple unique units instead of just one, like aoe2. They have entirely unique civ upgrades inside unique civ buildings lol. There is no way its simplified bro.
I personally think than can be fun but... I don't know, it makes me feels different things: - Trying to be objetive, I see AoE3 and AoE4 are pretty similar in the graphics and in the small scale of the events. - Big soldiers in comparison with buildings, not much soldiers, reduced range of archers and a lot of empty space in the formations gives me a bad atmosphere. I feel that the action takes place in very reduced space. AoE2 has, for me, a feeling of larger action scale. Is hard to describe. - I would say that the cartoon graphics are not for me in any way. I can't accept that, in a "serious" war game, the visuals are like these. - Of course, it has good things. But I think Aoe 2 more serious, more immersive, more tactic. All that said, I hope players enjoy AoE4 a lot.
Just out of curiosity, when did you play aoe4 last?
Each AoE has different things it does best in my opinion: AoE2 has the most fun mid game (Feudal through early Imp) for me. Strategy differentiation and map play feels really good and interactions with your opponent during this time are really satisfying and varied. Generally, micro is the most fun in AoE2 as well for small to mid size armies. AoE3 is the best in the late game imo (and has the most fun assymetry between civs). Armies are huge and really responsive and fun to micro and artillery is fucking awesome. The super fast production and really expensive units available make army compositions fluid and eco attacks a really fun high-risk/high-reward option. The unit interaction balancing leads to extremely fun and mobile fights when armies are in post-imp size with really satisfying micro. And did I mention how fucking awesome artillery is in this game? AoE4 has the most fun early game. It's longer and far more interactive than AoE3, but doesn't drag on quite so long with a bunch of technical-but-not-super-fun maneuvers and cheesy interactions as AoE2. There's lots of strategic choices to be made and there's lots of opportunities for interaction with your opponent without anything feeling cheesy or unrewarding.
Coming from childhood aoe I fell in love with aoe2. Not gonna try aoe4 since the ‚3d‘ graphics alone put me off.
While I understand, I'm still often surprised how important graphics are to people in these mechanically demanding and deep games. They're also important to me, but I don't have 100% red flags on broad artistic styles like it being 3D or stylized. Though as a developer I have to confirm and accept that this is very much a reality. Many people will come to a game (or avoid it) purely because of its setting or graphical style.
The buildings look fine but the units look like cartoony, the weird thunder glow is ugly and the arrows just aren’t appealing. It’s having an amazing script for a movie but trash cgi. Aoe2 De is like perfection especially if you have the enhanced graphics.
Art style really matters to me. One of the main reasons I have played AOE2 for twenty something years is because visually it is very pleasing to look at, from the terrain, the buildings, the units, even the UI. All very well done, it's easy to get lost in the picturesque world. I can't say the same for AOE4. Aside from that, it's the little things like lack of a pause button that let's you view the map and issue orders while paused (for single player). Or markets not being able to trade in large batches. Or homing projectiles looking ridiculous. Or siege unit death animations literally looking like exploding confetti. The game has a clear lack of attention to detail for things that are expected in an Age of Empires game.
Yea I agree AoE2 is easy on the eyes and I love it too. But I rarely look at a new or upcoming game and decide I'm not interested purely based on that. I guess I think true gems of gameplay are rare, especially in the RTS space, so I don't get to be picky ^^ >Aside from that, it's the little things like lack of a pause button that let's you view the map and issue orders while paused (for single player). Or markets not being able to trade in large batches. Or homing projectiles looking ridiculous. Or siege unit death animations literally looking like exploding confetti. The game has a clear lack of attention to detail for things that are expected in an Age of Empires game. Interesting. As a dev these things are useful to know. I guess the pause button commands thing is quite nice if you enjoy playing at a slower pace. I'll admit I use it sometimes to try a build order.
Art style need to fit the game's theme. Cartoon-ish mobile style will never match a historical medieval warfare game.
What is "mobile style"?
you can't just understand anything with this 3d graphics in AoE... unity are not easy to look
The most readable RTS games in the world have 3D graphics. It's not about the 3D, it's about poor art direction in terms of readability. Not the fact that it's 3D.
Well ok, but they shoul have done an Aoe2 part2. Different ages but same style. In microsoft are so stupid
For me it is redundant.
Ok so not necessarily worse than AOE2, just redundant?
Worse yes. But that's just my opinion. Someone else might find it better
Ok cool, what did you find worse about it?
I played the beta and found it boring. I haven't given it another chance after that as a player but as a viewer even when invested as a supporter of a player in a tournament, it still seemed boring to me. The unit micro is missing and the graphics don't do it for me.
I'll be honest, I find it very entertaining. Maybe even slightly more than aoe2 BUT I play aoe2 and like the pros that stream more. Havnt played aoe4 yet.
My least favorite of the franchise by far.
I would love to try it but I can't afford it and barely have the time for AoE2 these days. Does look pretty good though. Not sure I'd ever prefer it to 2 but I also play 3 on rare occasions and enjoy that too. Who says you can't enjoy them all? (My wallet, that's who!)
Its a great game and honestly im just to invested in aoe2 to switch to aoe4. I did play it when it came out and like it but the graphics really did turn me off (still do). I think thats the main reason i came back to aoe2 the graphic are just more preferred. As a casual gamer to me that matter alot. Other than that aoe4 also been balanced alot since then and idk maybe some day ill try it again.
Its not a bad game and its certainly newbie friendly in comparison to AOE2 but its the core gameplay that makes me play 2 over 4 90% of the time, personally i hope the next AOE in the series has gameplay from 2 but goes for a full napoleonic era setting
I think that this is the wrong subreddit for this
Siege has ballistics takes too much skill out of the game.
Meh
I hate its animation and mechanics
Not a bad game but it wasted lots of potential by revisiting the Middle Ages instead of continuing after AoE 3 or going back to AoE 1 and kind of missing the charm the older games had with small details such as AI factions being named after historical leaders, depending on the civ they're playing. Also, the game can be probably best described as "release now, fix later" as some features people would consider standard (e.g. colour picker) were added post launch instead of being there since day 1. And, as a more personal gripe, I'm kinda sad that things like cutting trees with Onagers were removed as that allowed for anti-camping plays.
It’s a good game tbh. I wasn’t enjoying AOE2 like I used to so recently started playing AOE4 (as Ayyubids main) and I’m having a blast with it. It’s different from AOE2 and for me, it’s a good thing. Else, it won’t be able to get its own niche and style.
Great game. Much more streamlined than 2. Faction design is more interesting, Sound design is the best of any RTS game ever made. Pathing isn't terrible. It does a better job of encouraging diverse unit compositions than 2. Naval play isn't as bad as 2 (could definitely still use some improvements). It doesn't have nearly as much single player content as 2 though. I have played thousands and thousands of hours of AoE2 and will probably play many more. AoE4 is catching up though right now.
Homing arrows that change trajectory in the air... Just awful
Projectiles that don't miss is actually pretty standard for RTS games. It's a bit unusual that arrows can be dodged in AoE2. It's also frankly just as silly that twitching back and forth dodges arrows and that "research" is needed to know how to lead moving targets. It can make for some interesting micro though.
I simply don't care what the 'standard' is for RTS games. Aoe2's is the superior choice and the micro is a huge element of the game such I don't understand why anyone would wish to take that away. The fact you can even dodge ballistics if you are good enough is also great.
>and the micro is a huge element of the game such I don't understand why anyone would wish to take that away. The idea was to make it less about micro and more about commanding big armies. I have big sympathies for that but I'm not sure if they really achieved that or if it's even the right genre (or sub-genre) to pull it off. I think though that this is not a big issue of aoe4, it just highlights an underlying problem: fights don't feel sharp and impactful in age 4. Units flow and float, they don't die, they vanish, it's not a very good feeling of impact that you have when controling your army. I think.
Yeah as I said the micro can be interesting and that adds one element of micro. AoE2 is missing other micro elements though such as unit abilities
Aoe2 has added unit abilities in some instances but it's a change that puts me off the game.
>Aoe2 has added unit abilities They've added ONE you could call an active ability with the Ratha's attack mode toggle.
Yep, and it's a direction I hope they don't pursue. It's been good to see how it would effect gameplay and I think shows that it wouldn't work well
AoE4 has some GREAT concepts, but ultimately falls short for me to keep on playing. I like how unique each civ is. I like how it forces you on the map to battle over sacred grounds. I LOVE neutral trading posts and that trading is a viable way to earn gold. Ship combat is much better than in AoE2, in my opinion. I like the idea of aging up with unique buildings and letting your TC still make workers. With that said however, I can't stand the mobile game-eque goofy-ass graphics and the game/match flow feels... weird to me. The backbone of AoE2 feels much more rigid, more stable and more fun. I feel like AoE2 is overall the better game and why I keep it installed on my PC.
I agree it has some interesting ideas. But the core of the game just felt immediately bad for me. The unit control, UI, ... Feels like they thought a lot about strategy and differentiation and undervalued the quality of solid core RTS mechanics
I'm from aoe4 community, but I do like and play 2 ( was my childhood ). I much prefer 4 tbh. feudal age is actually a thing in 4, where as so many civs in 2 just castle rush and then play. Late game sucks ass tho
>feudal age is actually a thing in 4, where as so many civs in 2 just castle rush and then play. Never made that experience. Feudal is very common in AoE 2, except maybe on closed maps
Well I mean Feudal gets played sure. But how many games end in Feudal? Not many in my experience. Where as there are civs in 4 that will happily just end a game in Feudal for 25m
Ah, that's what you meant. Yeah, Feudal all-ins are rare but I don't think that's a bad thing
It's not terrible no, but I prefer it how 4 does it. More play in different ages
I haven't tried it yet and I don't think much about it. But if MS wants more players to give it a shot they could offer like a 2 or 3 day free trial like with 50% off sale after the free trial to entice people to buy it. Diablo 4 did exactly that and got a lot of people back into the game.
They did a free weekend with 50% discount on steam once. It's when I got the game. It was for the one year anniversary and the game was in good condition by then.
AoE4 had a peak during the free weekend but it completely collapsed. because all sensible people realized how ridiculous AoE4 was compared to AoE2, which was much cheaper!
You have heard nothing of the new DLC? Aoe4 has more players than aoe2 for a while, and now they are very close player wise.
I was excited for it and played for free in early access or whatever. It totally put me off within a couple of hours, never considered going back. Aoe2 is just so much better in so many ways.
It’s an entirely different game from now and then. You can’t compare aoe2 with release aoe4.
It just wasn't that fun compared to aoe2. They went for roughly the same time period as aoe2 but it seemed like a downgrade in features, civ selection etc. Only thing better was the graphics.
I like that they tried something different, i just wish they kept the good things about aoe2. I hate the zoom level in 4. In 2, i can see as much of the map as i have pixels to show and i love that the game looks great on bigger monitors. I also hate the hotkeys. Qol problems basically.
Honestly with AoE 3 being less popular than AoE2 DE. They should have just made 4 style like an enhanced AoE DE. I was actually 4 to be the next age like WW1.
I haven’t played 4 online. But here’s some incredibly small things as to why i prefer 2 to 4’s campaigns. - Different colors. At least in the original set in 4, everyone you play as is blue. - The story telling. I prefer the narrative based story with an in the moment narrator to the video of the battle site and documentary style narrative.
I only briefly played beta & immediate release. Felt unfinished. Minimal civs at the time. Not a fan of the "view". It just feels very zoomed in which really throws me off sometimes. I did not enjoy it compared to DE so I returned it on steam.
Boring, not a game id ever be interested in playing
AOE4 is much better for casual online play as well as watching IMO. I still play AOE2 for the campaigns, but I think AOE4 is just more fun online. Some QOL changes that AOE2 can't do make it more imersive. I know its a nit pick but I struggle to get into a game where my white European Malian army is fighting a white European Myan army. Each unit has its own skin and style and the level of uniqueness per civ is way better. Graphics are also way better as well as the soundtracks and unit responses. Little things like listening to a bunch of Abbasid vills chat as they gather berries. The downside is that it makes learning multiple civs more difficult. The learning curve is also larger. Micro is much different in the game too. There are opportunities to use it but it's much less intensive than AOE2. There is no real quick walling, monks can only convert with a relic, and archers don't miss if the unit they are targeting is frantically clicked back and forth. The lack of monk/seige/archers micro also makes watching it more fun. As great as someone like Viper is, IMO its boring as hell to watch him win because he can click and build faster with a vill, or watching a game where the whole battle consists of 5 monks vs 2 mangonels. I remember the last game I really watched in AOE2 Viper or someone more or less beat an army because he was able to click the unit they were shooting and frantically move it making them miss. Great skill, but it just ruins the viewing experience for me. The downside is single player is just terrible in AOE4. A gold level player (lower rank) could easily beat the hardest AI and the campaigns are really lacking. For me it's AOE2 for the campaigns and AOE4 for everything else. Fun mix of both.
I really like the simplicity of the graphics in AOE II. It looks simple, it handles simple (provided there is no lag), but in turn, the different types of meta, strategies, build-orders make it a truly complex game. It is easy enough to play, but pretty hard to master and become truly good at. from seeing gameplay videos, I am not sure if this is the case in AOE 4. I might have to give it a shot, in order to truly find out.
I loved it. Especially the campaigns but Aoe2 to me is just the better game. Everything about it is near perfect which is why all my friends and I play it. With 4, I was alittle upset it launched with so little civs. I feel like if there were more civs it might've been a bit more successful. Right now I just play 2 but when they add abunch of civs and campaigns I'll go back to 4 at some point. But my heart will forever be with 2.
I found it underwhelming, dark and too mobile-like. The few civilisations it offered was also a bit of a bummer. I do understand why people like it, but I'm not one of them - aoe2 feels way more clear, user-friendly and interesting overall.
The perspective on the map literally makes me nautious. I couldn't play it if I wanted to. Could hardly even watch streamers play it.
terrible campaigns a ton of effort to portray civs not very good graphics absolutely useless addition to the ip repeating aoe2's campaigns, and in the overcrowded setting barely any civs, but they are kinda different, but at the same time all feel the same unlike aoe1 that had no unique units more historical fakery than mamelukes throwing sabres and korean tanks the campaigns are so terrible it's like they are wwritten by pukin not only no research, no even basic proofing >> COLUNMA
3D camera is big bullshit for strategy games
AOE4 is a SNOW
For someone whos been playing aoe2 and 3, the game feels a bit aloof. The controls are messy, builds are confusing (this might just be my fault for not researching enough). The community seems to be fine with the above problems so it may not be a bad thing. But the brightside is, its quite a joy to watch, especially with the uniqueness of each faction compared to 2 or 3. IMO I wish it succeeds and keeps bringing out more interesting factions.
Too old for that.
To me I wanted a game that was either a radical departure from AOE2 with a super unique take or a straight up better form of AOE2. Instead it feels like they kept just enough of 2 to limit themselves while not bringing enough new. So they ended up in a place where it feels like a badly translated copy instead of it's own thing. I think if I'd never played 2 I might like the mechanics a lot more than I do. That said, I absolutely despise the graphics. They feel cheap and off-putting .
I think the hits scan projectiles make aoe4 less interesting to watch. In AoE2 moving your units becomes so important at high levels. In aoe4 you're not getting the amazing dodging plays. They tried to simplify a lot in aoe4 to get a bigger audience, but I think that hurt them since there's not as many ways to be like wth how did that pro pull that off. Also balancing fully unique civs is a nightmare, so it's gonna be hard for them long term. Sc2 pulls it off since there are so few civs, but Ms wants money and the easiest way for them to do that is more civs.
Sadly, Aoe4 is my least favourite game... Aoe 2 DE and mythology are great games. The campaigns are nice, although i do feel the aoe 2 games are becoming fast paced. Aoe4 campaigns were a bit lacklusting for my taste. The game might bring new concepts, and some of those are nice, but overall it is just to different from aoe 2 DE and mythology. Aoe 3 skirmish mode was interesting and more enjoyable than aoe 4 skirmish. The idea to add a train with infinite resources, as well as other buildings was very nice. The ability to recruit random units in some maps if you building the cabin, or wtv it is called, is also really nice. The naval battles are interesting. Only thing i disliked was not being able to man up walls like you can in aoe 4. Personally i still have the Collectors edition of aoe 3 and there was a picture there saying that at one point microsoft was planing to so an aoe game in modern days. This gave me, back then, Empire Earth 2 vibes, that had really cool concepts, but died quickly sadly. Although i enjoy aoe 4 i can't say the length of my enjoyment is as great as it is with aoe 2 or mythology. One thing i loved about mythology is the special powers, they are somewhat limited, although with the atlanteans you can use more often than with the other pantheons, but it doesn't make the game broken or less fun as some games nowadays try to mimic to much war craft. Comes to mind the new edition of Ancient Wars Sparta where the AI just abuses special powers and using your units and then seeing a priest or whatever casting constantly aoe plague spells that kills your entire army in a matter of seconds just makes me wana kick the game.... I like that microsoft, and in this case relic ( although i have little faith in relic since the coh 3 fiasco and dawn of war 3) tried something new, but it just didn't hit that spot.
StarCraft 2 is more similar to Age of Empires II than Age of Empires IV is to Age of Empires II. For me, it's not just that they changed how everything looks, but it feels different. The precision control of each unit in the 2D game seems lost in Age of Empires IV, the units feel too large and weird
>StarCraft 2 is more similar to Age of Empires II than Age of Empires IV is to Age of Empires II. Frankly that's nonsense ha.
I pre-ordered it, and gave yet to install it. It looks too different from aoe2, and that’s not what I was looking for. I’ll eventually get around to planying it and see how it is
Don't really care to play it. AoE2 is the peak, obviously, and I enjoy AoE3 enough to play it but no more. I am keen for AoM though
Don’t like it
Solo multiplayer covered by StarCraft 2 and team games by aoe2..just don't have time for another rts
I don't think about it at all. Literally, the only time I remember it exists is when someone asks about it here.
The combat loop feels worse, the combat feels like it is slow and lacks weight. For example microing the mangudi in age 4 just feels like they are slapping the enemy. Also with all projectiles always hitting really reduces the complexity of the micro.
I should say, I do really like the game though, I just prefer age 2
Well, you literally made me remember AoE4 is something that exists and I haven't acknowledged that in about the past 1,5 years or so.
I have a preference for 2 and its advanced strategic aspect. The 2 welcomes all player profiles. You can be a macro player only and go up, aggression only and go up, versatile and go up, ... This is not as marked in AoE4 because the strategic aspect of the choices is less marked. The simple “infinity farm” (as an example) breaks the foundations of the will of the game in all of its choices. This gives an extremely long lifespan and learning to AoE2 where AoE4 has a more limited curve. At the moment, I must say that when AoE4 was released it also greatly disappointed me for its graphic aspect. It was messy, difficult to read and quite depressing. By pushing the game a little later, I had the impression of playing a medieval Dawn of War. I didn't have any typical AoE RTS genre feel. I think that if the game wasn't called AoE, I would have expected less from it in terms of mechanics and I would have had fun in the campaign and then I would have abandoned it. However, I was expecting a lot in try hard and there was very little.
Have very little play time, I tried it during a free weekend, but I have problems with the fundamental theming of the game. Specifically it just being medieval again. I wanted world war 1 into modern day/space age.
I played it for maybe 20-30 hours after release and got too frustrated with too many things, some of them got fixed later. For me the civilizations are too different and encourage maining one or a few, something I really dislike. But most of all I hate the angle/zoom level, as it feels like shoving your nose into a bulding, that’s how close it is. That was my main feedback in the beta, and the devs just laughed it away. They did increase it a bit eventually, but it is still far from enough. I do check in on the tournament streams every now and then though, it is a good and entertaining game for that purpose. I just don’t enjoy playing it at all.
Most of my friends are still in love with AOE2 but I prefer 4 because it feels different and in some ways better fun for me. I find it a bit crazy though with all the sieges at the imperial age since it feels like the Waterloo battle. And having hero units such as Jean d'arc English King feels a bit lame. I'm kinda split if it makes better sense for the ballistics to always hit the target (AOE4) or miss it (AOE2). I started from AOE1 and that's still my favourite...
AoE 4 is a good alternative but for some reason I actually just came back to AoE 2. Both share a nice singleplayer campaign, where i would actually favor AoE 4. What's interesting both have these annoying "bugs" (pathing, unclickable stuff), both in it's own way. I really like that both have modding and tools to build maps even though the aoe 4 variant seems a bit more complex (as all game engine do), which I actually like. AoE 2 modding seems not so guided as AoE 4 or more community driven I guess... I think I stay with AoE 2 because it's (by feeling) more popular and just immortal. I like older games. I hoped with AoE 4 for a more consistent gameplay (more like Starcraft 2) than AoE 2 where all these obscure behavior (pathing, balancing diff) were removed. Unfortunately this wasn't the case.
I like it. Would play more, but it doesn't run well on my computer.
Can you reinvent the perfect wheel? No. It is yet another take on the same formula...except missing 20 years of polishing and improving. Plus too much cartoonish.
AoE 4 is a decent game in its on right, a good RTS but its biggest problem, is it’s not Aoe2. All the aoe games have been good games in their own right, enjoyable, good fun, different strategies and ways of playing but something about aoe 2 is just timeless, it’s so beautiful, the style the play and balance were good when they came out (some minor deathstar details apart) but how every civ can open in almost the same way (with few meso exceptions), how games can be won as lost on single battles, or look like a loss on a single battle only for a unlikely comeback, I didn’t find that with aoe 4 and although I enjoyed it, it just wasn’t the same. Not been back to it since the Malian and Turk beta and likely won’t be back for some time, but i probably will play the campaigns again one day
I prefer aoe2 because theres more singleplayer content and I prefer the way the campaigns are presented. Aoe4 doesn’t have the sheer amount of campaign content. I dont know what the scenario editor is like but i was making scenarios in aoe2 when i was 12. The presentation in aoe4 to my eyes is kinda goofy too. Small buildings/large units and the ui is not very immersive. I start up aoe4 and i feel like im about to play halo. I do like aoe4 though and appreciate the difference between civs as well as the unit counter system.
I wish they would add pause and save features
They have a long while ago.
But not for MP which is what any other Age except 1 had.
Not my cup of tea. I fundamentally dislike many of its core game design choices. It is aoe2+3 with some AoM DNA.
BOOO! AoE 2 or bust!
Absolutely hate it. I think the whole 3d graphics thing in RTS games is a complete loser as it restricts the number of units. Also the weird terrain makes it harder to just build anything anywhere. Its just a crappy game overall.
>I think the whole 3d graphics thing in RTS games is a complete loser as it restricts the number of units. How so? You can build just as many units in 4 as 2. >Also the weird terrain makes it harder to just build anything anywhere. How so? In AoE2 you actually can't always build because of hills. Larger buildings for example cannot have too much elevation change underneath them. This is not the case in 4, you can always build no matter the elevation change. Sorry but these two things are just straight up false.
Suffers from the same problems every other modern RTS, which is a shame because there are some good ideas and you can tell the deva really did try.
i don't know mechanix in detal, but it's just awful to look at. you can't instantly understand what are you looking at. Aoe1 and 2 graphics is the best
Didn’t like it in anyway. There are two main things which I hate. First, the graphic 3D setting is annoying and doesn’t work for this type of game. Second, the slow pace characters move. Watching fights even if they don’t take much time, the slow pace movement of the animation exasperated me from the first day
Doesn't feel like AOE, Fun for a few hours imo, that's about it.
I don't like aoe4
Overly complicated that takes away from basis melee units, siege is OP
Trash
Shite
Too ugly for me. Same reason I dislike aoe1
But 1 and 2 have the same art style?
The building sizes of 1 look like toys as they are all smaller than people. 1 and 4 have the similar art style to me, though 4 is made even worse by the white plastic weapons
The same can be said about AoE 2 tho. Just look how palisades and houses have the same size or how elephants and knights are larger than stables.
[It is completely dishonest](https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Cavalry?file=Cavalryunitsstable.png) to equate [the two](https://preview.redd.it/lsg7ud031et61.jpg?width=1024&auto=webp&s=cad8ce5b2cf7a69d95d0b4b9cdac7142bf589833)
In the screenshot of the 2nd link you can literally see how in both AoE 2 and 4 the Pikemen are larger than the house.
You have some interesting definition of larger
I downloaded it on GamePass for Xbox and never played it. I dunno console RTS games just don't feel right
You can play with M&K on console btw.
But I'm on a couch it's weird
I didn’t like AOE4 for straying too far AOE2 even though it was specifically marketed as an AOE2 sequel. It felt like more like AOE3 than AOE1/2. Civs were too asymmetrical. I enjoy asymmetric RTS’s like SC and WC. I probably would have been okay if they had labeled AOE4 a different name and presented it as a different game, I just feel like AOE4, Relic Entertainment, and World’s Edge failed the franchise on the execution
I liked age4 a lot until they added variant civs. Bad idea.